Evaluating Your Fears: Am I Good Enough?

Evaluating your fears can be difficult. But, it’s necessary to take a step back and evaluate them to see where they are coming from.

I reached a point in my life where I was believing what fear was telling me. I was believing that I wasn’t good enough – not a good enough wife, not a good enough mom, not a good enough friend, not a good enough woman.

It’s not a great place to be (the stress of it all is suffocating and overwhelming). So, how do I take a step back and evaluate where it’s coming from?

What I like to do is grab a piece of paper and a pen, sit down somewhere where I can be alone for 5 minutes, set a timer and just write it out. For this exercise, I used the following prompt:

When ___________, it makes me fear I’m not good enough.

The idea here is to fill in the blank with everything that makes you fear that you are not good enough. Here is what I came up with: I don’t complete my task list, I don’t spend time with my kids, I don’t spend time with my husband, I don’t have a clean house, I see pictures of other moms “perfect” life, and I don’t have time to take care of myself.

Next, I like to read over my fears and ask myself: “What sticks out to me the most? What bothers me the most?

When I read over mine, what tugged at my heart strings the most was not spending enough time with the ones I love. It’s really important to me to have a house full of loved ones that feel loved.

Then, I like to look at the list again and see if I can figure out what fear is preventing me from doing what is important to me. So, I look at the list again and ask:

What fear can I work on letting go of first to help let go of the others?

The first one to go is comparing myself to other moms on social media. That is what is making me feel like my task list needs to be really big. Does it really need to be so big?

No; it doesn’t. Society is telling us moms what a perfect mom is suppose to look like. But, we are not robots friends. We are human beings with struggles. And those struggles mold us and shape us into who we were born to be (the perfect mom for our kids, not the perfect mom).

So, I am going to work on eliminating the pressure of getting a task list of 20 things done in one day. With a list so big, I am setting myself up for an anxiety attack (or multiple ones). Because of my giant task list, I am setting myself up to not spend time with the ones I love. So, I need to make my task list smaller and get rid of the pressure of having to be perfect.

Letting go of the pressure of perfect is like taking a giant weight off your chest. Removing that weight will help you and me be better at the other things on our fear list.

Mama, please evaluate your fears and let the fears go.

Yes, I still have to get my tasks done. But, maybe there are things on my task list that I don’t need to be doing. Maybe, I have said, “yes,” to too many things and need to dial it back. It’s okay to say, “no,” and be intentional with your yeses.

***This exercise was to evaluate your fears and figure out how to work on letting go of them; but, it also helps you prioritize what is most important to you.

Comments

Lu this is great! It is so helpful to self evaluate. And I totally agree about not comparing yourself to others. I find myself doing that and it only causes feelings of inadequacy. I also love the Bible verse! Thanks so much for this post!

You’re welcome Abigail. And thank you so much for reading my post! When I find myself comparing, I list off some thankfuls. Bible verses on my fridge or inspirational quotes around the house help remind me of my purpose and that I’m doing great.